AMD Plans to Launch A-Series “Trinity” APUs in Q2 2012 – Source.

Advanced Micro Devices intends to speed up the launch of its code-named Trinity A-series accelerated processing units (APUs) and release its next-generation Fusion chips already in the second quarter of 2012. Besides, the company intends to release a new FX-class Fusion Controller Hub (FCH) that will add better support for multi-GPU configurations and high-end RAID capabilities.

At present AMD’s Fusion A-series accelerated processing units (APUs) with integrated graphics adapters power mainstream personal computers that are not used for hardcore gaming. However, with the next-generation A-series Vision platform AMD plans to target the market of gamers: the Trinity APUs will feature high-performance Bulldozer/Piledriver x86 cores, and the A85FX FCH will feature native support for CrossFireX multi-GPU technology as well as RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 capabilities.

AMD’s second-generation code-named Trinity APU for mainstream personal computers (Comal for notebooks and Virgo for desktops) will be made using 32nm SOI HKMG process technology at Globalfoundries. The APU will feature up to four x86 cores powered by enhanced Bulldozer/Piledriver architecture, AMD Radeon HD 7000-series "Southern Islands" graphics core with DirectX 11-class graphics support, DDR3 memory controller and other improvements. The chips will be compatible with new FM2 infrastructure.

AMD claims that Trinity will offer up to 50% improvement in GFLOPS performance with the same power consumption as currently available A-series "Llano" APUs or similar GFLOPS horsepower with 50% reduction of power consumption.

Sources with knowledge of AMD’s plans said that the company intends to release the first Fusion Trinity APUs in the second quarter of 2012, less than a year after the company launched its Llano accelerated processing units.

The A85FX FCH – code-named Hudson D4 – will feature integrated clock-speed generator, PCI Express with CrossFireX support, PCI, USB 3.0 support, 8 SATA-6Gb/s ports and so on. The chipset will hit production in Q1 2011 and will be released at a yet unknown timeframe.

The improved support of multi-GPU technology by the second-generation A-series Vision platform code-named Virgo indicates indirectly that AMD’s expectations for the next-gen mainstream platform will be competitive enough for the market of gamers.

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it's not the same...once BD is done it's easy to tweak it...unless it has some major flaws that will need redesign. afaik GF has some problems with the production process and that's why they agreed with the "get payed only for good dies agreement"

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3.

With all possible delays, Q4 2012 is more realistic. At first time it looks like they have everything in place: mature bulldozer cores, mature 32 nm and mature GPU, so they can really release it in Q2. But with Llano also everything was mature, but it was heavily delayed. Designing CPU is not as easy as playing with lego bricks.

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A process like you say has nothing to do with performance. It is the engine or micro-architecture that matters the most. Also it is the microcode. During those days the K7 was hard for Pentium 4 to beat. A Pentium 4 2.6 GHz is required to beat a K7. AMD K7 was superior to Pentium 4. Then came K8 and it is superior not just on performance, but on lower power consumption although the first K8 was 130 nm vs the Pentium 4 was at 65 nm. The Pentium M put Intel in gear again and this processor was only for mobile or notebooks. The Pentium M then become the Core 2.

What AMD needs to do is figure out why the A-series mobile processors are competing well with the Core-i series mobile processors. Then bring that processor to the desktop world. At this time the A-series desktop processors are not that great compared to the A-series mobile processors.